Valve buttons for pressurized dispensers and dies for making the same



April 2, 1963 ABPLANALP ErAL Rs 3,083,917

R. VALVE BUTT FOR PRESSURIZED NSE AND DIES FOR MAKING THE Original Filed Oct. 10,

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ATTORNEY United States Patent Ofiice 3,683,917 Patented Apr. 2, 1963 3,083,917 VALVE BUTTONS FOR PRESSURIZED DISPENS- ER? AND DIES F011 MAKHNG THE SAME Robert Henry Abplanalp, Bronxviile, and John Richard Focht, Yonkers, N.Y., assignors to Precision Valve gorgoration, Yonkers, N.Y., a corporation of New or @riginal application Get. 10, 1956, Ser. No. 615,136. Di-

vided and this application Italy 7, 1961, Ser. No.

This application is a division of application, Serial No. 615,136, filed October 10, 1956, now Patent No. 3,008,- 654.

The invention relates to valve buttons for pressurized dispensers and also includes dies in which said buttons may be pressure molded.

The buttons of this invention may be employed in connection with aerosol materials or mixtures. An aerosol material is, in the true sense, a solution of an active ingredient and a propellant, in contradistinction to a mixture which consists of a solid particle active ingredient and a propellant. In such mixtures, the solid particle ac tive ingredient is in suspension instead of in true solution.

A number of dispensing valves known to the market are adapted to efiiciently dispense aerosol solutions but are either wholly ineffective or seriously defective in the dispensing of mixtures, such as above referred to. The difiiculty arises through the inability of the push buttons, with which the valves are equipped, to produce a satisfactory spray pattern throughout which the solid particles are uniformly distributed in discrete and separated form. Most prior constructions with which it has been attempted to dispense such materials either dispense the same in large droplets with excessive drip at the nozzle or squirt the material in the form of a stream, both of which conditions are wholly undesirable.

Exhaustive experimentation has shown that a very high degree of turbulence of the material before and as it leaves the nozzle is essential to satisfactory dispensing of mixtures and it has been found that the most satisfactory way to accomplish this is to dispense the same through a nozzle which imparts to them a rapid rotary motion, so that the mixtures leave the nozzle and form a spray pattern in which the material swirls at high velocity.

Numerous attempts have been made to construct valve operating buttons which would bring about this result, but this has involved many diflicult problems because satisfactory spraying requires that the nozzle opening be extremely small and many times minute.

Although the need has been acute and some of the best minds in this art have been applied to these problems, the best and only solution heretofore obtained has been to construct the button of a plurality of parts which must be separately fabricated and subsequently assembled. The resulting buttons are expensive to produce and materially add to the cost of the dispensing mechanism as a whole.

With the foregoing considerations in mind, the primary object of the present invention is to provide a valve button which will accomplish highly effective results in the dispensing of a discrete solid particle-propellant mixture and which may be made complete in a single pressure molding shot, with all parts thereof integral with one another, so that no prefabrication is required and no subsequent assembly operation necessary.

The accomplishment of this object is made possible by the use of dies of unique construction which, as hereinafter pointed out, may be readily made by any experienced die maker. They are such that the use of these dies in a conventional pressure molding machine, utilizing 3 Qiahns.

any appropriate kind of thermoplastic, will result in the production of the button of this invention.

Generally speaking, this button is provided with the usual nozzle perforation, but immediately adjacent the inner end of the nozzle perforation is formed a circular chamber, preferably coaxial with the nozzle. Leading 0&- center into said circular chamber and preferably substantially tangent thereto is a passage through which the mixture is fed from the interior of a hollow valve stem. Since this material is under considerable pressure, it traverses said passage, enters the circular chamber off-center, swirls about therein at high velocity and exits therefrom through the nozzle perforation with high velocity circular motion, to be discharged therefrom in the form of a swirling spray of substantially conical form, having a smaller or larger angle at its apex according to the size and shape of the nozzle perforation.

Features of the invention, other than those adverted to, will be apparent from the hereinafter detailed description and appended claims, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

The accompanying drawings illustrate different practical embodiments of the invention, but the constructions therein shown are to be understod as illustrative, only, and not as defining the limits of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a central vertical diametric section through a valve button embodying the present invention, showing the button in place on the tubular valve stem of a pressurized dispenser container.

FIG. 1A is a perspective view showing an aerosol dispenser embodying the present invention and indicating the swirling character of the particles in the spray pattern.

FIG. 2 is a fragmental section on the line 22 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows in central section a die for making the button illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the male die member of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a like view of a modified form of the same general construction.

FIG. 6 is a side elevation of the member shown in FIG. 4, as viewed from the left of that figure.

In FIGS. 1 and 2 we have shown the button and in FIGS. 3, 4 and 6 the dies for making that button. In these latter figures, the female die 1. embodies a cavity 21 gated at 22 or in any other suitable manner. The male die 3 has a portion 23 which may be wholly or partially cylindrical or of any other desired shape and cross section. it is shown in FIGS. 4-and 6 as cylindrical and is formed with a boss 24 projecting laterally near its free end. The upper portion of the part 23 is provided with a slot arranged elf-center and preferably substantially tangentially of the boss 24 and into this slot is permanently secured a fin 25. There is associated with the female die a retractable core 26 having a terminal projection 27 and this projection is adapted to centrally abut the boss 24 as shown in FIG. 3. The button B is pressure molded while the parts are in the positions described and, after the cast has been made, the retractable core 26 is withdrawn, the mold sections are separated and the cast ejected from the female mold. Although the boss 24 extends laterally from the part 23, the parts are so small and the plastic cast is at this stage of the operation so yielding, that no difficulty is encountered in separating the parts.

In molding buttons in a mold such as described, we find it convenient and desirable to use a thermoplastic which is more or less resilient. Polyethylene is the preferred plastic. It is introduced into the mold when the parts are as shown in FIG. 3, through the runner and gate 22, or in any other suitable manner and fills the en- 3 tire mold cavity which is unoccupied by the male die and core projections. Immeidately following injection of the plastic, it solidifies, but it remains sufficiently warm and elastic, to permit of a separation of the core parts and withdrawal of the cast from the female mold.

The resulting button is as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. The cylindrical part 23 of the mold has formed, within the button, passage 23a adapted to snugly receive the upper end portion of a tubular valve stem 14, as shown in FIG. 1.

When this assembly is associated with a container (not shown) and discharge valve of which latter the stem 14 forms a part, the material to be dispensed passes upwardly through the valve stem 14, flows through the channel 25a formed by the fin 25 and downwardly into the circular chamber 24a formed by the boss 24. The material enters this circular chamber 24a tangentially, as shown in FIG. 2, swirls around the interior of this chamber, as indicated by the arrows in this figure, and exits through the nozzle 27a which was formed by the projection 27, to produce the swirling discharge in the spray pattern.

FIG. shows a slightly modified form of the structure shown in FIG. 4. In this form the upper portion of the part 23 is made conical as at 28, so that the mouth, nozzle and circular chamber, corresponding to the chamber 24:: of the button willbe tilted upwardly to more efficiently deliver a spray pattern with the axis of the spray pattern inclined in an upward direction. Otherwise the die of FIG. 5 will function-in the same manner as the die of FIG. 4.

In the foregoing detailed description, we have shown one way of accomplishing the object of this invention. The parts of the die are so constituted that they cast a one-piece integral button with a passage leading olf-center into a circular discharge chamber to produce a swirling discharge of said material from said chamber so that it persists in the spray pattern. By this arrangement the material is broken up into an extremely fine spray or mist in which the solids are uniformly dispersed.

This invention possesses many advantages over. prior practice. It permits the accomplishments of the results to which we have referred through simple and conventional pressure molding practice and it entirely eliminates the necessity of subsequent assembly of separately fabricated parts heretofore required to produce the swirling discharge. By the use of this invention swirling discharge valve buttons may be produced at the same cost as the ordinary straight trajectory discharge buttons and at the same time and without any additional operations.

The foregoing detailed description sets forth the invention in its preferred practical forms, but the invention is to be understood as fully commensurate with the appended claims.

Having thus fully described the invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A molded valve operating dispensing button provided at its bottom with a socket to snugly receive a liquid conveying valve stem of a pressurized container, a substantially circular depression molded in the inside wall surface of the socket to form therein a swirl chamber having a discharge outlet substantially coaxial with said chamber and leading therefrom to the exterior of the button, there being a channel molded in the inside wall surface of the socket leading tangentially from the swirl chamber and extending upwardly from said chamber to a point in the socket above that portion of the socket which is adapted to house the valve stem.

2. A molded valve operating dispensing button having in its bottom a socket adapted to receive the free end of a valve stem having a liquid conveying passage, a substantially circular swirl chamber molded in the inside wall surface of the socket with a discharge outlet leading from substantially the center of said chamber to the exterior of the button, with an open sided channel leading across the inside wall surface at the upper end of the socket to a point above the circular chamber and thence downwardly directly to and merging into the circular chamber substantially tangentially of the latter.

3. In an assembly of the character described, a pressurized container having a valve with an upstanding valve stem having a liquid conveying passage, and on the valve stem a one-piece operating button provided in its bottom with a socket in which the valve stem is snugly contained, there. being a substantially circular depression molded in the inside wall surface of the socket below the upper end of the valve stem, and there being a channel also molded in the inside Wall surface of the socket tangential to said depression and leading inwardly from the same to a point above the end of the valve stem in the socket, whereby material flowing through the valve stem and through the channel will partake of a swirling action within the depression, and a discharge passage leading from substantially the center of said depression through the wall of the button to the exterior of the latter to convey liquid from said depression and discharge it to the atmosphere in the form of a whirling spray.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,213,846 Meyer Sept. 3, 1940 2,550,573 Lyman Apr. 24, 1951 2,659,631 Wilmes Nov. 17, 1953 2,783,501 Kutik Mar. 5, 1957 2,789,012 Bretz Apr. 16, 1957 2,812,548 Quinche et al Nov. 12, 1957 2,906,461 Bretz Sept. 29, 1959 2,989,251 Abplanalp et al June 20, 1961 

1. A MOLDED VALVE OPERATING DISPENSING BUTTON PROVIDED AT ITS BOTTOM WITH A SOCKET TO SNUGLY RECEIVE A LIQUID CONVEYING VALVE STEM OF A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER, A SUBSTANTIALLY CIRCULAR DEPRESSION MOLDED IN THE INSIDE WALL SURFACE OF THE SOCKET TO FORM THEREIN A SWIRL CHAMBER HAVING A DISCHARGE OUTLET SUBSTANTIALLY COAXIAL WITH SAID CHAMBER AND LEADING THEREFROM TO THE EXTERIOR OF THE BUTTON, THERE BEING A CHANNEL MOLDED IN THE INSIDE WALL SURFACE OF THE SOCKET LEADING TANGENTIALLY FROM THE SWIRL CHAMBER AND EXTENDING UPWARDLY FROM SAID CHAMBER TO A POINT IN THE SOCKET ABOVE THAT PORTION OF THE SOCKET WHICH IS ADAPTED TO HOUSE THE VALVE STEM. 